


reverence

by sowerberry_25 (emilily_25)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Sex, Hand Jobs, Light Angst, M/M, Oral Sex, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sleepy Sex, aka me everyday, an obscene amount of sweet talking, p much just porn but with lots of steve's internal monologuing, which is a lot of being mad at the world and worshipping bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:01:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22595959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilily_25/pseuds/sowerberry_25
Summary: Two men broken from the ice— one heals, one won't drop his shield.After falling out with the Avengers and becoming an international fugitive, Captain America retires from service. Steve Rogers does not.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 8
Kudos: 92





	reverence

**Author's Note:**

> couldn't decide if i wanted soft boi hours or sad boi hours  
> so i did both lol

Cold has always felt strange on Steve’s skin.

Before, back when he was nothing but a skinny runt of a man, even the tiniest bit of chill bit painfully into his bones. A single gust of wind could knock him over, and there wasn’t a day that went by without his teeth clattering and spine shivering from the cold. After the serum, though, his body always ran vividly hot, his natural temperature so much higher than any normal person’s. He can withstand cold so much better now, can handle the direst of chills without so much as a shudder.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t feel it.

The wind nips at the skin of his cheeks as he walks through the dark plains. The nighttime air of the Wakandan desert is unforgivingly chill, a stark contrast to the blistering heat of daytime. Steve relishes in the way the hair on his arms still perk up with goosebumps, the way every little breeze or gust cuts against his flesh in razor sharp lines. It makes him feel uncomfortable, makes him feel real, makes him feel _human._

He doesn’t get a lot of that nowadays.

Steve doesn’t have to look to see where he’s going, body moving through the barely moonlit trails on rote muscle memory as his mind wandered into his own prison of thought. Really, he wishes he could just shut his brain off entirely, go blank until he arrives at where he wants to be, but it rarely ever works that way.

It’s almost habit, really, to use any moment he has to himself to strategize, to debrief, to plot.

Has been since the war, since one successful rescue op turned him into the Star-Spangled Man with a Plan, who everyone could turn to as a tactician, as a guide, as a leader. Steve doesn’t blame any of them, though. He took on this mantle knowing what it entailed, and held it proudly even as the ghost of long-dead title wore on his bones.

Because even if Captain America is well dead in the eyes of the international psyche, people still want the titular shadow that remains in Steve Rogers’s hollowed out ribcage.

It’s not hard at all to find jobs to put food on the table and pay the bills, even for the now-a-criminal Captain America and his band of outlawed ex-Avengers. Across the nations, everyone from political leaders to crisis aid camps pleaded for their help, even if it had to be done under the table like they were nothing more than mercenaries.

They helped tear trafficked women and children out of the explosive war zones and returned them to their families. They brought down weapons traders smuggling alien tech to high-level buyers, as the world reeled still from the Invasion of New York years ago. They hunted down and destroyed remnants of HYDRA lurking beneath the shadows of what seemed like every damn country in the world.

And they did it without looking back.

Sure, if they asked, Steve’s sure T’Challa would have no qualms of giving them more legitimate lives. He’d probably give them Wakandan asylum and find them some comfy diplomatic and tactical roles that presented them with dignity and respect.

But Steve can’t ask that of him.

He, Sam, Nat, and Wanda are nothing more than fugitives, criminals, to the eyes of most, and giving them any sort of public platform would only come to backfire on T’Challa all too soon. No, Steve can’t risk that, not when Wakanda’s only just beginning to open up its doors and play on the international stage. Strong and dignified as she is, Wakanda doesn’t deserve the derision and degradation and delegitimization that comes with being attached to Steve’s motley crew.

And well, it’s selfish, but Steve knows the more Wakanda’s respected, the less people will go snooping around, and the better Bucky can stay hidden away from the undeserving world around them.

_Bucky._

The sight of the familiar hut in the near distance is more than a relief—it’s like a whole weight off of Steve’s shoulders. He trudges along as fast as his exhausted limbs can take him, impatience and desperation tugging at his heel. The closer he gets, the more he feels a dull aching in his chest that was once reserved for widely different places and times.

Only recently, that ache had been for the sleek, enormous Avengers compound after retiring from a difficult mission. During the war, it had been for any uninvaded town in the safe zones of France, with non-hostile citizens to talk to and warm water to shower in. And long, long ago, before all of that, it had been for a ratty Brooklyn apartment with piles of medications thrown haphazardly next to his torn up mattress and the world’s problems so seemingly far away.

So different were all of those places, but the ache in his chest meant the same thing every time: he’s _home_.

Steve stumbles through the hut with as much grace and stealth as he can manage. It’s entirely dark—not so surprisingly, considering it’s the dead of night—but Steve knows the place like the back of his hand. It’s all too easy to navigate to the back of the home. He tiptoes through a familiar threshold and flips a switch to turn on the smallest light in the room.

He can’t stop the half-choked gasp that tears out of his throat at what he sees.

Bucky looks calm as a clam in his sleep, peaceful and relaxed in a way Steve’s not sure he’ll ever quite get over seeing. He’s never been like this, not really. If it wasn’t the ghost of the Winter Soldier haunting his dreams, it was night terrors from Zola, or anxiety from the war, or stress from the depression. 

Now, though, there’s no frown to his lips, no lines marring his skin. He looks utterly serene, and Steve’s struck with such a painfully sharp realization that there’s probably nothing he wouldn’t do to keep that calm on Bucky’s face forever.

He shuffles over to the bed as quietly as he can manage and sits down, smiling as Bucky doesn’t even stir from the added weight. He’s dead to the world, sleeping so soundly like it’s all he can do. That doesn’t stop Steve, though, from pulling his covers down, crawling over him, and leaning in to press a chaste kiss to his cheek.

“I’m home,” he murmurs, kissing Bucky’s lips this time and smiling when he gets a soft hum in response, as though Bucky’s greeting him even in his sleep.

It spurs Steve on further, making him lean in with more kisses fluttering across Bucky’s forehead, his cheeks, his lips. He goes lower, mouthing hotly at the column of his neck and lingering right over the pressure point below his right ear. Bucky squirms a little when he sucks down on the dip there, and Steve brings a hand down to his bare chest to soothe him with soft touches.

While he’s out and about, Bucky defaults to Wakandan shuka nearly all the time. He suits it unbelievably well, in Steve’s opinion, and revels in the sheer comfort and mobility of it. Sometimes, though, he’ll get lazy. He’s put off doing his laundry, and instead do nothing but throw on a pair of crumpled sweatpants like the ones he has on now. There’s no need for shirts even, not with the layers of blankets he piles on and his own radiating body heat.

Steve never says he doesn’t appreciate Bucky’s laziness.

He strokes the warm, taut skin of Bucky’s pecs, thumb swiping teasingly at a nipple a time or two until Bucky’s subconsciously arching into the touch. Steve nuzzles into his neck more, planting kisses on any skin he can reach and biting down when he gets particularly keen.

It’s not long before Bucky’s breath hitches, the rise and fall of his chest stuttered as he reacts with only half of his consciousness. He’s awake, only barely but enough, and Steve can’t help but smile at the sight of him writhing around as he comes to. He places his palm wide against the flat of Bucky’s stomach, pressing down and smiling when it draws a wordless whine out of Bucky in response.

“Shh, relax, sweetheart,” Steve murmurs, thumbing circles into Bucky’s hip bone comfortingly.

“Steve?”

Bucky’s voice is groggy with sleep, and his eyes flutter open tiredly. The dull yellow glow from the small lamp behind Steve can’t be doing much to illuminate his face, but Bucky doesn’t seem to mind. The second he lays eyes on Steve, his lips curl upwards in a sort of content grin, weak and almost dazed in sleepiness.

“Steve,” he repeats.

It’s not a question this time though, but instead a confirmation, as though he’s assuring himself that Steve’s real and here with him now. It has Steve’s chest clenching painfully tight, with love but also guilt and shame. Here he was, running around and going off to fuck knows where, leaving Bucky with no assurance of when or even if he’ll be back.

But Bucky’s here anyway, waiting for him with all the patience and care he has in his lovely body. He doesn’t question where Steve goes, doesn’t try to pry apart the nightmares in Steve’s head, doesn’t judge the blood staining Steve’s hands. He just lays back with upturned lips and loving eyes the second Steve comes back to him.

Oh, how Steve wishes he could keep that sleepy grin on Bucky’s face forever.

“Buck,” he murmurs.

He leans in to nuzzle their noses together in the softest of eskimo kisses. Bucky reciprocates slowly, still not entirely alert but happy nonetheless. He lets out a pleased hum when Steve presses their foreheads together and sucks in a little breath when the hand on his stomach presses down a little again.

“Rough mission?” Bucky asks, voice slurred a bit, and Steve only grunts an affirmation back.

He never tells Bucky where he goes, what he does, or why he’s gone for so long. He doesn’t give him so much as a measly scrap of a hint, even when he knows that Bucky could very well guess on his own and be correct 90% of the time.

It doesn’t matter though, because Steve would never confirm those guesses. There’s no need for Bucky to know every detail of Steve’s inner horror show, to know the breadth of the battles they’re facing. Bucky has plenty of his own demons to face without having to saddle the weight of Steve’s exhaustion. 

And so, Steve won’t tell him a peep, and it’s certainly not for lack of trying on Bucky’s part. Back when he’d first come out of cryo, he asked almost incessantly. He’d push and he’d pry, trying to get even the tiniest thing out of Steve, but he’d get nothing.

He’d even tried to ask Sam a couple times before, though it never really went over all too well. Sam, with all his experience with vets and trauma, was so entirely out of his depth on the sheer immensity of Bucky’s situation. He seemed hesitant to say _anything_ to Bucky, let alone answer any of his prodding questions or listen to his demands.

Steve played his part too, for better or for worse, hinting that _‘it wasn’t a good idea’_ or that _‘Bucky didn’t need to know.’_ Sam certainly gave him the curious look or two at that, as though waiting to call him out on some bullshit. Still, he never failed to default to Steve’s judgement when in doubt, and for that, Steve was grateful.

Besides Sam, there’s only been one other person Steve knows that might try to debrief Bucky about their missions: Natasha. Wanda never comes here to Wakanda, and neither Shuri nor T’Challa have the time to even consider see Bucky, let alone tell him where Steve goes off to for days, even weeks at a time.

Natasha, though, is a harder case to crack. Even now, Steve’s not all too sure what she even thinks of Bucky. On the rare occasion she comes to visit their little Wakandan home, she and Bucky tend to do little more than size each other up with curious, skeptical looks. Still, Steve’s avoided letting her be in a room with Bucky, and he’s seriously considered picking up Russian just so he could facilitate if they ever _did_ decide to have a conversation for once. 

It wouldn’t be too bad. The serum did make learning things so much quicker, after all, and—

“Stevie,” Bucky calls out, snapping Steve out of his reverie.

There’s something hard about his voice, so uncharacteristic especially considering how tired Bucky must be after being woken up like this, and it has Steve snapping his head down at him immediately. The content smile’s fallen off of Bucky’s face, and while he’s not quite frowning, the loss of that pleased look puts a strain on Steve’s heart unlike any other.

“You’re hurt.”

Steve blinks, not entirely registering the words and realizing their meaning until Bucky reaches out to run his thumb over his temple. The crusty feeling of the dried blood on his skin isn’t lost on Steve, and he almost flinches at the soft look of disappointment Bucky gives him.

“It’s okay,” Steve reassures, grabbing Bucky’s hand and turning his head to kiss it. “It’s already healed—it was just a cut.”

“But yo—”

“Shh.”

Steve leans in and cuts any incoming protest off with a kiss that Bucky melts into. He pushes perhaps a little too hard into the kiss, their teeth threatening to clack against each other and their lips smushed together almost uncomfortably close. Still, Steve doesn’t let up, pinning Bucky to the bed with nothing but the force of his lips and hoping it’s enough to distract him entirely.

He doesn’t want Bucky to realize that the blood swiping his forehead isn’t his own.

Bucky’s hand falls out of Steve’s loose grip and down to his side, and Steve responds by bringing both his hands to toy at the waistband of his sweats.

“So good for me,” Steve breathes when their lips part, and Bucky keens under the praise.

“Steve, baby—”

“Hush, doll. Just lay back and let me be sweet on you, okay?”

“You’re al’ays sweet on me,” Bucky retorts weakly, but doesn’t protest anymore as Steve shucks his sweatpants down his legs with loving precision. “Mm, Stevie…”

And just like that, Bucky’s naked for him in all his glory, having forgone the addition of underwear entirely. Steve drinks in the sight below him like a man parched. There’s never been a version of Bucky he hasn’t found positively incandescent. It didn’t matter if he was just a cheeky teenager, a proud Sergeant, a starved war prisoner. It didn’t matter if he was the Winter Soldier, the White Wolf, or just _nobody._

He was and always would be Bucky, and that alone incensed Steve beyond belief.

He coaxes Bucky’s legs open with no resistance, taking in the sight of him all open and pliable for him. His cock hangs limply between muscular legs, his thighs trembling in anticipation. Steve licks his lips as his eyes go up, gaze roving over his happy trail, the tone of his stomach, the swell of his chest. Before he can bring his eyes up to relish in the flush growing on Bucky’s face and neck, however, he pauses.

All bare and exposed like this, there’s no ignoring the rounded stump where Bucky’s left arm would be. They’d removed the scraps of the god-awful arm HYDRA had planted on him and Tony painfully destroyed, cleaning it out and disconnecting any lingering nerve cables right around the time when Bucky had asked to go back in the ice (a horrible, horrible time that Steve tries to never think about).

Since he’s come out from cryo, Shuri has probably offered him a thousand and one different variations of a prosthetic arm, but Bucky’s rejected every single one. Says he doesn’t need it, he can get by on one arm alone.

Steve knows the truth—knows the discomfort he has around anyone, especially doctors, hovering around his arm. Too many memories, too much trauma to face even if it’s to help.

The thought has Steve’s gut curling uncomfortably. One arm, two arms, no arms—Steve doesn’t care, he loves Bucky either way. He almost wants to lean in and kiss the stump of his arm just to remind him of that, but he holds himself back. Drawing attention to it would only upset Bucky, and right now, Steve just wants him happy and sated.

So, he opts for Bucky’s neck instead. He leans in to pepper more kisses along his neck, sucking and biting here and there for good measure. Most of the lovebites Steve left on him only minutes prior are already fading by the second. The serum always did make it hard to make marks that lasted, but Steve doesn’t mind so much—all the more excuse to bite Bucky up even more.

Steve finally leans back from that pale expanse of skin, and his heart swells when he sees nothing but love and trust in Bucky’s sleepy grey eyes.

“Wanna suck you,” Steve whispers almost pleadingly, spurred on more by the high-pitched keening sound it draws out of Bucky. “Wanna hold you down and make you feel good, sugar, make you feel so, so good. Can I, lover? Oh, can I please?”

“Fuck, Rogers,” Bucky pants out. He arches his chest up a little higher with each of Steve’s pleas, and Steve brings his fingers to toy at his nipples almost instinctively. “Gonna make a man faint, with such a devilish mouth.”

“Go on, faint. I’ll be here when you wake.”

“Steve!”

Bucky throws an arm—his only arm—around the back of Steve’s neck almost violently, yanking him close so he could smash their mouths together in a rough kiss. Steve doesn’t bother holding back his startled moan, but he melts into the kiss in seconds.

His hands dance up and down Bucky’s thighs roughly, taking in the firmness of the muscle beneath tough skin. Every once in a while, he brushes his hands a little bit high, closing in on Bucky’s inner thighs and pelvis. Each time he does, without fail, Bucky twitches a little in his hold, and it’s not long before Steve pulls away to see him at half-mast.

“You wake me up just to tease, asshole?” Bucky growls, all playful with no heat.

Steve snickers, curling his fingers into the soft flesh of Bucky’s inner thigh and watching as his hips give an aborted little jerk in response. He pulls his hand back, and it’s mostly an accident when the back of his knuckles swipe across Bucky’s shaft. Mostly. Bucky hisses at the contact, though it fades into a sort of choppy, desperate exhale.

“Just taking my time, honey,” Steve promises. “After all, we got all the time in the world, don’t we?”

Bucky’s eyes go soft all of a sudden, and it nearly chokes Steve up.

“Yeah…” Bucky says, tender and sweet and so _Bucky._ “Yeah, we do.”

Steve kisses him breathless.

It’s almost painful to pull away, minutes later, but he’s a man on a mission and he’s going to finish it, god damn it. Bucky’s pliant and mewling in Steve’s grasp as he slides down, sliding his whole face down his body in unbridled worship. He noses over firm pecs, licks down lines of abs, nuzzles his cheek into soft thighs.

By the time he’s made his way down completely, he’s as rearing to go for it as Bucky is. He breathes hotly over Bucky’s half-hard cock, watching it twitch in delight. He plants mouthy kisses across the shaft, holding Bucky’s hips down when he starts to buck up into the ministrations. Bucky whines in complaint, but doesn’t try to pull away from the hold. He just lays there, nice and docile in his grasp as he waits to take whatever Steve’s willing to give.

Fuck, how did Steve get so lucky?

It’s out of his own impatience when Steve finally, finally, leans up to wrap his lips around the head of his cock. Bucky reacts instantly, his hips pushing desperately against Steve’s hold, which never quite budges. A ragged gasp tears out of his throat as Steve takes him in bit by bit, sinking his mouth down onto his cock with no hesitation.

Steve bobs his heads a few times, and he has to tightening his grip on Bucky’s hips to keep him from moving.

“Stay still, honey,” he demands when he pulls off for a second, and Bucky tries to glare down at him.

“Can’t help it,” he snaps back, though with how breathless and nasal his voice is, the words sound more like a whine than anything else. Steve rewards that by sinking his mouth onto Bucky once more, deeper this time. “Stevie!”

Steve hums lightly in response, the vibrations around Bucky’s cock drawing a cracked moan out of him before he can stop it. Not that he would, of course. Bucky knows just know much Steve likes to hear him, and he’d never deprive him of hearing all his sweet little noises no matter how much it embarrasses him.

No, not never. Sometimes he’d hold back, the little minx, biting his lips or covering his mouth to muffle those sounds Steve wants to hear so damn badly. He’d do it with a little glint in his eye, as though challenging Steve to make him so loud he can’t hold back, and Steve steps up to the plate gladly.

Now, though, he doesn’t restrain himself. Not when he’s all sleepy and compliant and open like this.

Steve lowers his head further, all the way to the hilt, and the startled scream he’s rewarded with is well worth the slight burn in the back of his throat. His nose is nestled in the wispy curls of Bucky’s pubic hair, his mouth encompassing him whole and never letting go.

Steve lets his throat contract and shudder a little around Bucky’s cock, and he’s only just able to reach a hand out to hold down Bucky’s hips to keep him from thrusting upwards. He doesn’t have much of a gag reflex anymore, but he’d rather not choke just because Bucky’s forgotten his own strength for a moment.

“O-oh, oh Stevie, so good doll, so—ah!”

Bucky’s cries cut off into an unintelligible moan when Steve reaches a hand up to cup his balls. The sounds spilling from his mouth are so sweet and soft, Steve sucks harder and harder just draw more of them out. Bucky’s a writhing mess in his arms, asking for more with the prettiest pleas and weakest cries of Steve’s name.

Steve’s hand strains with the pressure of holding Bucky’s hip down, threatening to break free at any second to slam up into Steve’s willing, wanting mouth. A low growl rumbles in Steve’s chest each time the thick head pushes against the back of his throat.

Heat pools in his gut, along their skin, around them everywhere in the air they breathe. God, everything is positively scorching against the natural chill of the night. They don’t mind, though. Neither of them care for the cold, because the cold bites and scratches and _takes everything away—_

Steve’s jaw clenches unintentionally, and Bucky cries out shrilly at the scrape of teeth against the base of his shaft. It’s not deep enough to hurt, really, but enough to feel it. Steve forces himself to relax and drop his jaw, and Bucky nearly sobs in relief. Not wanting to stop there, Steve hollows his cheek and flattens his tongue against the skin his teeth had pressed into. He pairs the motion with a quick squeeze of Bucky’s balls, and that’s enough to send him over the edge.

Bucky’s orgasm comes painfully quick, his whole body seizing up in Steve’s arms as he releases into his warm, wanting mouth. Reaching down to dig his fingers into dirty blonde hair, Bucky uses Steve to ground him as he spills over, whining when Steve sucks him through release.

“St… Stevie,” he pants out, keening when Steve just won’t stop. He swallows the last bit of Bucky’s load, humming when his throat convulses around his softening, overstimulated cock. “Too much, baby, c’mon…”

He tugs up at Steve’s hair weakly, his limbs barely strong enough for the gentle tug. Steve knows from experience that it’s far from too much—the serum’s given them a refractory period that’s practically nonexistent—and that Bucky could easily take more. But he’s tired and pleading, in a way that makes Steve helpless to do anything but obey.

Taking mercy on him, Steve gives his cock another quick suck or two before finally pulling off, and he smiles when he sees the way Bucky immediately melts into the mattress, exhausted.

“Good, baby?” he asks, already knowing the answer as he leans in for another kiss.

“Mm,” Bucky hums against Steve’s lips, lazily mouthing back at him. “Gonna be the death of me, Rogers, I swear.”

Steve laughs, actually laughs at that. It’s a heart, full-bodied thing that he hasn’t had in a while, but Bucky’s always able to pull out of him so easily, just like that. He barely has to try, knowing in his blood and bones how to make Steve happy. It’s practically engrained into him, and ain’t Steve the luckiest man on earth to have that?

“Be a way to go, huh?” he quips back, fluttering kisses along Bucky’s jaw. “Taken out by a mouth on that pretty co— _fuck_ , Bucky!”

Steve cuts himself off with a hissing groan when he feels a heavy palm against his own clothed erection. It’s started to form a large tent in his uniform pants, and Bucky cups the bulge without hesitation.

“You too, doll,” Bucky pleads, and fuck if Steve can refuse a request like that.

He shoves his pants down as quickly as he can, cock springing forward into Bucky’s waiting hand. He’s fully hard, spurred on by all of Bucky’s little sounds and squirms and screams, and he almost hisses from oversensitivity when a warm hand wraps around his shaft. It’s dry, but he doesn’t mind it as Bucky starts to pump him.

“Fuck, I’ve missed you,” Steve grunts out weakly.

He’s leaning in to smash their lips together with no finesse at all before Bucky can even think to respond. He explores Bucky’s mouth with all the ferocity he can muster, mapping out that familiar cavern he’s traverse probably a thousand times before. He’ll never get tired of it, though, no matter how many times he works his way through Bucky’s mouth.

There’s not a single part of Bucky Steve will ever get tired of—that, he knows for sure.

He whines when a thumb swipes over his leaking cockhead, the sound nasally, high-pitched, keen. Pre-cum’s dripping from his cock instantly, and he bucks his hand into Bucky’s grasp shamelessly.

It’s far from a rough and quick handjob. Lethargy both from his orgasm and from being woken up in the middle of the night paints each of Bucky’s strokes, and he only barely manages to keep a steady pace.

That’s alright though, because Steve’s more than willing to do the extra work for him. He fucks into Bucky’s hand like it’s his mouth or hole, and he drinks up the sight of him beneath him even more. Flushed from orgasm and the heat of the room, his hair fanned out around his head on the pillow—

“Can’t you stop, Stevie?”

The words snap into Steve’s mind, and he stills his hips obediently, albeit with a reproachful whine.

“Not that, you moron,” Bucky laughs, pumping him and coaxing Steve to move again. He does so, albeit slower than before as confusion buds in his chest.

“Buck?”

“Just…” Bucky bites his lips, averting his eyes guiltily.

Steve hates seeing that expression on his face. Bucky should never feel guilty, not if Steve has anything to say about it.

“What is it, honey?” he bites out, only just holding back a moan when Bucky’s blunt nails scratch around the side of his shaft. “Stop wh— _ah, Buck—_ stop what?”

“All of it.”

Bucky’s voice is raspy, and Steve wants nothing more than to kiss the air out of him. He resists the urge, and strokes his cheek encouragingly instead.

“The missions, the fights, all of it.” Bucky finally lifts his head again to make eye contact with him, and there’s a plea painted all over his face. “Can’t you, can’t you take a break? Stop, even for a little bit?”

It’s cruel, positively cruel, to ask like this. Steve’s wound up and desperate, thrusting into Bucky’s warm hand like his life depends on it. He’s so damn close, weeks of time away making him just so much more sensitive than usual. He’s practically keening for it, so much so that he’d do anything Bucky asks just for release.

But, well, that’s not quite the whole story, is it? He might be on the cusp of release, on the edge of orgasm, but his mind’s clear of clouds when he looks down at Bucky now. Even just a quick glance at that silken chestnut hair, that blooming pink flush, those shimmering blue-grey eyes, and Steve already knows that he’d say yes to just about anything Bucky asked of him.

Maybe that’s why Bucky never asked this before.

“Yes,” Steve pants out before he can even think about reconsidering.

Throwing himself forward for yet another sloppy kiss, Steve breathes out a litany of _“yes”_ s in between each open-mouthed press of the lips. It’s so passionate and forceful it catches even Bucky off-guard, though he returns the enthusiasm in kind as best he can. Steve snaps his hips back and forth, fucking into Bucky’ hand so hard and quickly that Bucky can’t even pretend to keep up with him anymore, doing little but keeping his grip tight so the friction’s just right.

It’s not long before Steve feels himself approaching the edge. His mind’s going blank, and there’s no room to think about what he’s just agreed to, how ‘taking a break’ will work, how long it’ll be for. He can’t even pretend to worry about that now, not when his mind’s filled with pleasure and Bucky.

Bucky, oh Bucky. God, he looks like a damn masterpiece right now, so sweet and soft for Steve and Steve alone.

Later, once they’ve cleaned up and gotten proper rest, Steve will take his time. He’ll kiss Bucky slowly, get him wanting and needing, open him nice and wide before filling him up so good. He’ll take Bucky apart bit by bit until all he knows is the feeling Steve on him, Steve in him, Steve around him. The world will fade away, gone in favor of just the two of them in their own beautiful bubble.

The thought has him going feral with need, and soon enough, he’s cumming with a shout.

He releases into Bucky’s hand almost violently, covering his hand with his cum in loads. Some of it trickles down the length of Bucky’s wrist, while some of it drips down onto his abdomen and cock. Steve’s struck by a sudden urge to place his hand on the release, smear across more of Bucky’s skin until he’s filthy with it.

Before he can, though, Bucky’s releasing his cock and tugging him down by the shoulder into a hug. Steve falls into his arms gracelessly, and Bucky takes his weight with no complaints, nothing but a soft grunt. Still, Steve makes sure to shift quickly, falling to Bucky’s left instead so he can lie more comfortably. Bucky turns onto his side too, so they face each other, and he reaches out to grab Steve’s hand with his own.

“Love you,” Bucky murmurs, sleep starting to take over again as his eyes grow heavy.

Steve watches in endearment as Bucky tries and struggles to keep his eyes open. Peppering kisses across his face, Steve whispers sweet nothings to him, coaxing him into a restful sleep with nothing but the most loving words. It’s not long before Bucky’s out like a light once more, fingers entangled into Steve’s.

That peaceful serenity is back on his face, and despite the exhaustion wearing at his own bones, Steve forces himself to stay awake just to watch it. He watches the steady rise and fall of Bucky’s chest, and wonders if one day, he could stay to watch it for the rest of his days.

 _He can,_ a traitorous voice in his head reminds him. He’s already promised Bucky he’d take a break, even if it was in the heat of the moment. He’s not one to go back on his promises, and he sure as hell won’t now, not when Bucky asked so sweetly for him.

But… what if it doesn’t need to be just a break?

The thought’s like the devil’s temptation, and Steve tries to ignore the squeamish feeling building up in his gut. He wants to bask in his afterglow, just lay here and enjoy being home, but his head’s already spinning with thought.

Can he, in good conscious, stay like this forever? Happy, content to do nothing but be in love? A century passed, and most assume he’d be ready to give it all up for the easy life. The public thinks it. Tony asked about it a hundred times before their fallout. Even Sam and Natasha probably consider it, even if they never ask him. The world assumes that Captain America, the centenarian, the soldier out of his time, yearns to step down and drop the shield for one last time.

But Steve knows himself better, and he knows Bucky does too.

They know the fire alight beneath his skin and in his bones. They know that Steve Rogers was never Captain America, not entirely. He’s never been just a symbol of righteousness and justice and doing the right thing. He fights for what’s right, sure, but it’s not all he is, not by a long shot.

Steve Rogers is, and always has been, the tiny fool chasing war no matter where it may go.

That much hasn’t changed at all.

Maybe that’s why Bucky asked for a break, not a full stop. Bucky could ask him for anything else, and Steve would be eager to do it. He’d bring the world down to its knees, burn everything to a crisp, at the very snap of Bucky’s fingers if that was what he wanted. He’d turn his back to everything and everyone, he’d bloody his knuckles and grit his teeth and fight any fight Bucky asked him to.

But Bucky, sweet Bucky, didn’t want that.

Bucky, who knows Steve better than he knows himself, wants nothing but peace. He wants peace and reconciliation and everything Steve doesn’t know how to give. Because while Steve’s able to do a lot, he’s never quite learned how to stop, not completely. He doesn’t know how to resist the sweet temptation of the fight, doesn’t know how to stand down and _stay_ down.

There’s always wars to be won, and Steve can’t stop. Not ‘til the last embers of fight in him died out.

He tries to imagine a life without dirt on his brow from the battlefield, blood on his uniform from his enemies, ringing in his ears from the gunshots. He tries to imagine the peace and domesticity that the world says he’s entitled to after all this time, that he’s supposed to want so badly.

Nothing comes.

Holding Bucky tighter, Steve presses a kiss to his forehead before he falls into a blank, dreamless slumber.

-

He lasts about three days.

Things are almost blissful like this.

Sure, there’s an itch under his skin that never quite goes away, same as the nagging throb at the back of his head, one that screams for him to leave, to go out, to _do_ something. But even with that, things are pleasant.

He starts and ends his days with Bucky by his side, and even during the course of the day they’re never far apart. There are no responsibilities, no one to answer to but each other, and maybe some of Bucky’s more rambunctious goats.

Steve doesn’t have to think about the dubious morality of Natasha’s reconnaissance missions. He doesn’t have to wonder how long it’s been since Sam’s seen his family. He doesn’t have to go about his days hiding his face from the world just so no one will try to sick a SWAT team on the fugitive ex-Captain America.

All he has to do is sit back and watch as Bucky lives, truly lives, for the first time in decades, and for that, he’s happy.

But good things never do seem to last, especially not for Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes.

They’re out in the fields when Steve gets the call. Bucky’s helping the local farmers cultivate some of the nearby land. The days are getting colder and colder, and soon enough crops will be harder to grow, but it’s looking like the autumnal harvest will be good this year.

Self-sustainability, Bucky had described, before. Growing your own food, plus a little something for the folks in the city, rather than relying on supermarkets and mass production. Back in the old days, before all of this, James Buchanan Barnes was a city boy through and through. Yet now, he’s helping to make his own food, cooks it up on his own and relishes in the satisfaction of being a self-made man in all senses of the word.

It’s terribly domestic. Steve loves it.

He startles out of his pleasant reverie, though, by a vibration on his leg. His head snaps away from where he’d been staring at Bucky hard at work, and his stomach drops when he realizes what it is.

Gently, as delicately as he can manage, he pulls an all too familiar flip phone out of his pocket. He stares at the phone for a second, baffled to see it ringing. He doesn’t need to look at the caller ID to know who it is, doesn’t even need to guess.

There’s only one contact put into this phone, after all.

Steve sees Bucky shoot him a curious glance, and he wills himself to shoot him a shaky but reassuring smile. Judging by his expression, Bucky doesn’t seem to buy it, but he doesn’t push. Instead, he just shrugs before walking away into a nearby hut. Steve sighs before answering the call, words flying out of his mouth at the same, million-miles-an-hour rate his heart’s pumping at.

“Tony? What’s wrong, where do you need me? Do you need backup—”

“Steve, it’s me.”

Steve freezes, his heart stopping in its tracks. That familiar voice, deep with a smooth cadence, that Steve was so sure he’d never hear again, rings through the phone, and _god_ Steve doesn’t want to get his hopes up but—

“B-Bruce?”

“Hey, Cap.”

Steve listens with rapt attention, his head spinning with every word out of Bruce’s words mouth. It’s dizzying, thinking about aliens and stones and other planets and Thor and Loki and _Thanos_. He can barely make sense of all of it, but then again, not much has ever made sense since he came out of the ice years ago.

He tries to kick the sinking feeling in his gut when Bucky returns. He immediately notices the phone in Steve’s hands and the somber expression on his face, so he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he simply watches as Steve speaks with Bruce in hushed tones, watches as his face grows darker and darker.

When Steve gets the gist of what he needs to do—find Wanda and Vision, protect the stones—he hangs up faster than he probably should. He knows he needs to talk to Bruce properly, to figure out where he’s been and what he’s been up to. He knows he needs to figure out what the hell happened to _Tony_ , because Steve knows without being told that it couldn’t have been anything good if Bruce was the one calling him.

There’s so much to talk about, but instead, Steve simply hangs up and only just manages to not crush the phone.

“Another mission?” Bucky asks finally, approaching him slowly.

His expression’s blank, but Steve can see the twinge of disappointment and concern in it. It makes him feel shitty, that he’s somehow managed to paint that expression onto Bucky’s face once again when he so hoped he could stop.

“More than that,” Steve answers vaguely, reaching out to him in near desperation.

Bucky obliges him, stepping into his arms so Steve could embrace him tightly. His hold is probably tight enough to hurt, but Bucky doesn’t complain. He never does, not really. He’s too, too good for Steve, stubborn, selfish Steve who wants nothing more than to stay in this embrace forever.

But he can’t do that, and Bucky knows.

“Come back soon,” Bucky murmurs into his shoulder, and Steve only holds him tighter.

Captain America is dead, and Steve Rogers might not be a good man, but there’s one more battle he needs to fight.

**Author's Note:**

> my bf got me disney plus for christmas and i spent like all of january binging mcu movies and ive fallen down the stucky rabbit hole again after like three years or smth dslfkajslkfjsd
> 
> i just want them to be happy i love them sm :((( god damn russos fucked it up but its okay thats what fic is for  
> enjoy <3


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